Save the Slender Loris: Stop illegal use in black magic rituals

NOTE : THIS PETITION HAS BEEN APPROVED BY PEOPLE FOR ANIMALS, INDIA'S LARGEST ANIMAL WELFARE ORGANISATION.

It's important because these timid creatures are being killed in a gruesome, barbaric way for black magic rituals. Their arms or legs are cut off or crushed, and they are burned alive.

Is it fair to take advantage of small, timid creatures because they're helpless? Is it fair to wipe out a species because of delusional human beings?

Save the Loris before the entire species becomes extinct.

from Times Of India: They are round-eyed, timid,nocturnal primates. And their chances of survival seem to be getting slender owing to the gruesome way in which they are maimed and killed in the state. The slender loris, activists say, are being increasingly hunted down for black magic.

People for Animals, an NGO working with urban wildlife, found six injured slender loris in the past two months. The NGO says the nature of injury on the animals point towards them being used in black magic rituals.

"The animals are injured in the most barbaric way. Their arm or leg are usually cut off or crushed. The belief is that whatever is inflicted on the animal will in turn happen to the person's enemy," said Kishan C H, general manager, PFA Bangalore.

The forest officials believe that tribals are being paid to catch the nocturnal animals. Familiar with the forests and hunting techniques, it does not take much to catch these slow-moving creatures. Of the six that were found, three did not survive as septicemia caught up through the open wounds. The other three were released back into the Sravanadurga forest after experts ensured they could manage in the wild.

Some of the animals were found in a farm house in Nelamangala. Interestingly, two of them were found in Shivajinagar. "As it is a hub of carpentry, the animals would have reached them through trucks carrying wood from the outskirts," Kishan said. Another one was brought to the veterinary hospital in Hebbal by a citizen but was directed towards PFA as the creature was a wild animal.

Bangalore had, once upon a time, a lot of urban wildlife, slender loris being one among them. The small patches of dry scrub jungles here were home to large number of these tiny creatures. They are now endangered and a variety of loris comes under the vulnerable category in the red list. According to Sindhu Radhakrishna, associate professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, who has done her doctoral research in slender loris, the numbers of the primate are diminishing. Apart from black magic, they are used as pets and in folk medicine. "There was a time when they were sold off in the Russell Market," she says.

Letter to

Cheif Minister, KarnatakaK. Siddaramaiah

The slender lorises are being killed mercilessly for black magic rituals. Please make the killing of slender lorises illegal and punishable with imprisonment. The places where the slender lorises have been identified should be declared as a highly protected area as slender lorises are under schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.